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I admit I love the sight of a periodic table, but I think this abuses the metaphor. Elements on the periodic table aren't ordered by their rank (abundance in e

I admit I love the sight of a periodic table, but I think this abuses the metaphor. Elements on the periodic table aren't ordered by their rank (abundance in earth or in space) and the grouping of the elements in rows and columns has a very clear interpretation as to their physical properties. I don't see any rules emerging here about which typefaces are related to each other or how they can be combined. also I'm a little disturbed by the absence of comic sans?

rauljara 16y ago
I think you aren't giving the table the credit it deserves. The fonts aren't ordered by rank at all. They are arranged by class (grotesque on the left, proceeding to geometric and didone on the right). I'll admit though, the rules don't seem entirely consistent to me. But they are consistent enough that I feel like there's an order here that I'm not quite grasping. I'd really like to see a post about how the table was put together, and whether the inconsistencies are arbitrary, or whether there really is a system behind it.
- jcl 16y ago
  The creators have a FAQ which describes their methodology: http://www.squidspot.com/Periodic_Table_of_Typefaces.html http://www.squidspot.com/Periodic_Table_of_Typefaces.html Interesting: The fact that Helvetica is number one and matches up with Hydrogen's position is purely a nice coincidence.
baddox 16y ago
To be fair, typefaces aren't natural, and they don't exhibit periodicity. If they were and did, we could probably predict properties of yet-undiscovered typefaces.
- nooneelse 16y ago
  Are there no natural metrics for typefaces? I doubt that. If there are some, then order typefaces along those and project that higher dimensional space down to 2 or 3. Jigger a bit with the projection to make the output as legible as possible while preserving all or most all of the information it can covey. Done. That is what the chemists did. It took them quite a bit of work (years, iirc), and that is why we laud them. They didn't lazily appropriate some previous table's shape and force the elements to fit it. Well, hell, maybe some chemists did do that sort of cargo cult "info"graphicing. But we rightly forgot about them because what they made was silly in comparison to the actual periodic table, which conveys real information about our world.

rauljara 16y ago

I think you aren't giving the table the credit it deserves. The fonts aren't ordered by rank at all. They are arranged by class (grotesque on the left, proceeding to geometric and didone on the right). I'll admit though, the rules don't seem entirely consistent to me. But they are consistent enough that I feel like there's an order here that I'm not quite grasping. I'd really like to see a post about how the table was put together, and whether the inconsistencies are arbitrary, or whether there really is a system behind it.

jcl 16y ago
The creators have a FAQ which describes their methodology: http://www.squidspot.com/Periodic_Table_of_Typefaces.html http://www.squidspot.com/Periodic_Table_of_Typefaces.html Interesting: The fact that Helvetica is number one and matches up with Hydrogen's position is purely a nice coincidence.

baddox 16y ago

To be fair, typefaces aren't natural, and they don't exhibit periodicity. If they were and did, we could probably predict properties of yet-undiscovered typefaces.

nooneelse 16y ago
Are there no natural metrics for typefaces? I doubt that. If there are some, then order typefaces along those and project that higher dimensional space down to 2 or 3. Jigger a bit with the projection to make the output as legible as possible while preserving all or most all of the information it can covey. Done. That is what the chemists did. It took them quite a bit of work (years, iirc), and that is why we laud them. They didn't lazily appropriate some previous table's shape and force the elements to fit it. Well, hell, maybe some chemists did do that sort of cargo cult "info"graphicing. But we rightly forgot about them because what they made was silly in comparison to the actual periodic table, which conveys real information about our world.